Conditioning Research

Michael from Critical MAS posts a great observation here about "boot camp" training .  He points out that amid all the marketing hype currently around Boot Camp sessions that people are missing something key.  Just because young soliders making it through boot camps are "fit" it doesn't follow that their training got them fit.   Even without the fact that they are young people at their peak there is something else that we miss, the whole selection bias thing. Boot camp training is for those who are already fit!  If you are not fit and able to do the training you are told to go away and come back when you are fit. The biggest difference between real Basic Training and Boot Camp training is the massive pre-screening effort the Armed Forces does to ensure a higher rate of success. When you take a bunch of healthy men and women that are mostly 18-20 years old and subject them to high levels of training, they tend to respond positively. Young people have a greate...

Good stuff - we are evolved for survival not truth..... these logical issues are really interesting to think through. I did 3 years of logic at university and there was some analysis of arguments like this. One thing I remember was this idea of the material conditional: if A then B, usually expressed s A=>B. For example if it is raining, the grass will be wet. One thing to be aware of though is that it doesn't go in the other direction: just because the grass is wet doesn't mean it is raining. You can't argue from the effect to the cause. Just because athlete X trains with plyometrics or bands or kettlebells or whatever doesn't necessarily mean that those things are responsible for his success or his physique.